Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the age-old adage that the sins of the father pass on to the son. Dead to him since his youth, Dave is stunned to learn that his mother was Mae Guillory, a whore who was murdered by a bunch of cops thirty years ago, her body dumped in the bayou bordering Purple Cane Road. Dave's search for his mother's killer leads him to the darker places in his past, and he learns what it means to be his mother's son . . .

Lawrence Sanders
McNally's Folly

When the Palm Beach Community Theater needs a director for its production of Arsenic and Old Lace, Archy tosses his megaphone into the ring. After all, Hollywood legend Desdemona Darling will lend her considerable talents to the show. While resident grande dame Lady Cynthia Horowitz wants a little of the spotlight to fall on her latest love, Buzz Carr, she has no intention of letting Buzz rehearse all day with the actress who, like Lady C, has made marriage a cottage industry. For poor Archy, there's more drama backstage than on-stage - especially when an actor sips some prop wine and drops dead . . .

Bill Pronzini
Crazybone

Behind the stuccoed facades of the Spanish-style houses in the affluent community of Greenwood, a murderous maze of deceit, adultery, fraud and betrayal lurks. Not that larceny among the rich comes as any surprise to 'Nameless'. Indeed, even before he visits the handsomely appointed offices of the blond, tanned insurance agent Rich Twining and the estate where the recently widowed Sheila Hunter lives uneasily with her wary ten-year-old daughter, the private investigator's darker suspicions have been aroused. For why would anyone, no matter how moneyed and beautiful and bereaved, refuse to claim fifty thousand dollars due to her in life insurance?